Following a sheltered childhood and education in
Cambridge, and having missed out on the Swinging Sixties,
Alec Forshaw was ready for a dose of the wider world.
London in the early 1970s was where the lights seemed to
shine the brightest. In reality London was still a city
struggling to find its post-war identity, full of
declining industries and derelict docklands, a townscape
blighted by undeveloped bomb sites, demonic motorway
proposals and slum clearance schemes. The streets were
lined with work-a-day local shops and greasy-spoon cafes,
but enlivened by ghettos of immigrants and student
culture. Ideas for traffic constraint, recycling rubbish
or conserving historic buildings were still in their
infancy. It was the decade which saw the three-day week,
the Notting Hill riots and the last of the anti-Vietnam
war protests. This sequel to "Growing Up in Cambridge"
portrays the London of over thirty years ago as it
appeared to a young man in his twenties, finding his
feet, coming of age, and stumbling across the sights,
sounds and sensations of an extraordinary city.